Chapter Summaries

Mo Xiaoling learned that the diviner’s prediction had led her to the abandoned farm, then accompanied Blackie to Old Madam Ma, who said Mo Xiaoling could not be saved from the resentment inside her. Mo Xiaoling used her ability to link the people in the room to a deadly car crash and threatened that they would die if she did; injured and blind, she ordered them to take her to the hospital.

• Mo Xiaoling and Blackie discussed how the diviner’s prediction of trouble in the west had influenced Mo Xiaoling’s choice of the abandoned farm.
• A man picked up Mo Xiaoling and Blackie in a meat delivery truck and took them to Old Madam Ma.
• Old Madam Ma performed a ritual on Blackie, who came close to dying before she recovered.
• Old Madam Ma examined Mo Xiaoling and declared that she could not be saved because resentment had entered her body.
• Mo Xiaoling showed Old Madam Ma and a man the vision of the Guangyuan Road crash, linking them to its death scene and threatening that they would die if she did.
• After someone kicked her and injured her chest, Mo Xiaoling ordered the others to take her to the hospital.

At the hospital, Mo Xiaoling waited for her examination results while reflecting on the deaths she and Blackie had caused. She witnessed a death scene in which a woman from a Greenleaf case died after worms emerged from her body, then wondered why Old Madam Ma sensed a death in a storage room instead.

• The man took Mo Xiaoling and Old Madam Ma to a hospital, where staff treated Mo Xiaoling's injuries and examined her blindness.
• While waiting in the corridor, Mo Xiaoling continued suppressing the side effects as the narrator recalled her history of killing people with Blackie.
• Mo Xiaoling saw a woman in a hospital gown run into the emergency stairwell and collapse as worms crawled out of her body, killing her.
• The narrator recognized the woman as the client from Greenleaf's "Urinary Tract Infection" case file and realized the worms were the life-worm Greenleaf had missed.
• Old Madam Ma told Mo Xiaoling she sensed resentment from a nearby storage room, but Mo Xiaoling had seen the woman die in the stairwell and wondered whether the hospital had been remodeled.

Granny Ma cursed Mo Xiaoling in the hospital, but Mo Xiaoling used her death-inducing visions to kill Granny Ma and recover her phone. Afterward, Mo Xiaoling learned she was completely blind and wondered what Wan Jisheng meant to her.

• Granny Ma explained that the hospital was cursed ground and attacked Mo Xiaoling with a curse that overwhelmed her senses.
• Mo Xiaoling snapped out of the curse when Granny Ma read the name Wan Jisheng from her phone, then retaliated with visions of death.
• Mo Xiaoling kept clutching Granny Ma while summoning the visions until Granny Ma died, and she retrieved her phone as medical staff intervened.
• The man summoned by Black Sister handled Granny Ma's affairs and then took Mo Xiaoling for medical examinations.
• Mo Xiaoling learned she was completely blind, sensed that the man feared she had killed Granny Ma, and warned him not to hurt her.
• Mo Xiaoling felt uneasy about the call from Wan Jisheng, and I wondered whether the caller was special to her.

Mo Xiaoling stayed with the gravely ill Black Sis, who uncovered her connection to Wan Jisheng and pushed her into a violent crisis. The chapter ended with Mo Xiaoling stopping when an unfamiliar man called her Xiaoling.

• Black Sis questioned Mo Xiaoling about killing Old Madam Ma and accused her of resenting society.
• Black Sis ordered Ah Zhuang to summon Mao Old Four to take revenge on Sanghua Township.
• Black Sis guessed Mo Xiaoling was protecting someone and offered her people as caretakers.
• Black Sis found a call lasting over six hours in Mo Xiaoling's phone history and identified Wan Jisheng as the person she had contacted.
• Mo Xiaoling's urge to kill Black Sis and Ah Zhuang surged, and Ah Zhuang attacked her before an unfamiliar man called her Xiaoling and made her freeze.

The narrator was pulled from Mo Xiaoling’s traumatic memory into a vision of her infancy, witnessing how her ability awakened and exposed her to others’ suffering. The vision then showed a hospital child dying after a shadow seeped into his body and overwhelmed his weakened heart.

• Mo Xiaoling panicked as A-Zhuang and Black Sis lay incapacitated, while Wan Jisheng’s voice came through the phone and the narrator’s consciousness began to fade.
• The narrator awoke in a vision of infant Mo Xiaoling and saw a mutilated, hanging man outside the window, whose injuries caused the baby pain and trouble breathing.
• Mo Xiaoling’s parents took her to a hospital, where she saw a black face and the vision shifted to a shadow creeping into a sleeping child’s surgical wound.
• The shadow reached the child’s heart, and the child wandered unresponsive through the hospital before collapsing as his mother and the medical staff tried to save him.
• The child died after yin energy overtook his weakened body, and the shadow hid beneath the bed.

The dream showed Mo Xiaoling’s childhood as she struggled with frail health and visions of the dead. Her family learned that the apartment had a violent history, took precautions, and prepared for her to start school.

• Mo Xiaoling’s frightening visions and weak health left her family searching for help, but doctors found no specific illness.
• When Mo Xiaoling was two or three, she told her mother she saw a ghost outside their window, prompting her mother to ask neighbor Sister Ji about the apartment’s past.
• Sister Ji explained that a workshop supervisor had killed his wife and the factory director after catching them having an affair, and that their deaths had been followed by disturbing hauntings and violence.
• Mo Xiaoling’s mother learned that the workshop supervisor’s young son had also seen his father’s ghost, and Sister Ji reassured her that Mo Xiaoling might outgrow her visions.
• The Mo family sealed the window and put up talismans and a bodhisattva image, while Mo Xiaoling cried less and prepared to start school.

Xiaoling Mo endured her family’s fear and blame after her mother died during a vision, then encountered the remnant of a dead child in the hospital bed. Her father took her home and told her she would be sent to boarding school, but she stopped in the road and stared at something.

• Xiaoling Mo’s parents and grandparents silenced and rejected her because of her visions, leaving her to suffer the side effects alone.
• Xiaoling Mo’s mother collapsed and died after seeing one of Xiaoling Mo’s visions, and her grandmother blamed Xiaoling Mo for the death.
• Xiaoling Mo was left alone in the hospital, where the remnant of a dead boy entered her body and kept calling for his mother.
• Xiaoling Mo’s father came to take her home and told her he had enrolled her in boarding school.
• Xiaoling Mo stopped in the middle of the road and looked toward something.

Mo Xiaoling witnessed the woman in red possess her mother in the intersection’s death scene, then suffered from the two streams of yin energy inside her. When her father came close, Mo Xiaoling used her ability to transfer the woman in red’s death scene into him, leaving him motionless.

• Mo Xiaoling saw the woman in red summon and embrace her mother, then watched the ghost’s yin energy enter her mother’s body.
• Mo Xiaoling’s mother rose unnaturally and walked away in a red skirt as Mo Xiaoling collapsed from the reacting yin energy inside her.
• A middle-aged woman grabbed Mo Xiaoling, who instinctively released the yin energy and caused the woman to collapse and stop breathing.
• Mo Xiaoling’s father approached her at the hospital staff’s urging, and she grabbed his wrist.
• Mo Xiaoling transferred the woman in red’s death scene into her father, who fell to his knees and lay motionless.

Mo Xiaoling relived the deaths of her parents and the cruelty and fear that followed, while the narrator considered how abilities shaped people’s lives. When a boy offered to face the ghost she could summon, he saw it and collapsed.

• Mo Xiaoling watched a man die, then recalled her grandmother blaming her for the family’s deaths and driving her from the funeral hall.
• Mo Xiaoling sat alone in the communal garden, where a boy tried to comfort her and said he knew she could see ghosts.
• Mo Xiaoling told the boy that she could see ghosts kill people and admitted that her parents had died after seeing them.
• The boy asked Mo Xiaoling to show him a ghost so she would stop crying, and she summoned the red-clothed female ghost.
• The boy clutched Mo Xiaoling’s hand in terror, praised her courage, and collapsed to the ground.

Mo Xiaoling relived the night her ability left her blind and Wan Jisheng came to comfort her, then remembered how their childhood friendship began. The memory ended with Wan Jisheng encouraging her to use her power to save people, though Mo Xiaoling knew it was no game.

• Mo Xiaoling lost her sight and sat helplessly as Wan Jisheng arrived and comforted her.
• The narrator recognized Wan Jisheng as Sister Ji’s son and recalled that he and Mo Xiaoling had grown up as neighbors.
• Mo Xiaoling remained unresponsive while the neighborhood committee and police intervened in the conflict at her home and took her to an orphanage.
• Wan Jisheng visited Mo Xiaoling at the orphanage and told her he was not afraid of her ability.
• Wan Jisheng held Mo Xiaoling’s hand and encouraged her to become a hero who used her power to save people.

Mo Xiaoling's memories showed how she first used her ability to help Mr. Sun investigate a haunted house and began meeting paranormal enthusiasts with Wan Jisheng. In middle school, an encounter with a powerful evil ghost overwhelmed her ability, and Mr. Sun was crushed when it entered him.

• After her grandparents died, Mo Xiaoling was rejected by her aunt and kept her distance from people at boarding school, while Wan Jisheng encouraged her to smile and helped her through the years.
• Mo Xiaoling and Wan Jisheng visited Mr. Sun, who wanted to see proof of ghosts, and Mo Xiaoling showed him the scene of a house's murders.
• Mr. Sun experienced the deaths through Mo Xiaoling's ability, then explained that the male homeowner had killed his wife and son after the wife blackmailed him over his embezzlement.
• Mr. Sun invited the children to visit another haunted house, and Mo Xiaoling began meeting other paranormal enthusiasts and sharing the burden of her ability with them.
• In her second year of middle school, Mo Xiaoling encountered an evil ghost, passed out as her ability went out of control, and the power entered Mr. Sun when he touched her.
• The force crushed Mr. Sun into bloody sludge in front of the others.

Mo Xiaoling and Wan Jisheng were trapped in the abandoned building as a ghost killed the adults who had come with Mr. Sun. Mo Xiaoling redirected the deadly backlash away from Wan Jisheng, but it nearly overwhelmed her until she passed it to four responding police officers.

• The ghost killed two of Mr. Sun’s companions, and Mo Xiaoling woke as the deaths reduced the backlash she was carrying.
• The ghost attacked the remaining adults while Wan Jisheng tried to protect Mo Xiaoling, and the last adult was swallowed by a shadow.
• Mo Xiaoling grabbed the ghost’s arm, forcing it to vanish into the shadows, but Wan Jisheng then saw a death scene and collapsed with blood at his neck.
• Mo Xiaoling redirected the backlash so Wan Jisheng took the smallest share and the ghost took the greatest, then called the police as the remaining backlash injured her.
• When four police officers arrived, Mo Xiaoling showed each of them a death scene and transferred the backlash to them, leaving them dead and collapsing from relief.

While Mo Xiaoling remained blind, Wan Jisheng apologized for encouraging her childhood ghost-hunting and promised to focus on finding treatment for her eyes. As Black Sis neared death, Mo Xiaoling traveled with A-Zhuang to a special place to refine Black Sis into her first ghost, where she suddenly saw a familiar scene of death.

• Black Sis explained that Mo Xiaoling's lethal ability was difficult to control and that she had tried to protect Wan Jisheng.
• Wan Jisheng apologized to Mo Xiaoling for his past encouragement and asked Black Sis whether her eyes could be treated.
• Black Sis and others tried to help Mo Xiaoling regain her sight, while Wan Jisheng stayed with her and she endured visions of deaths.
• As Black Sis's body failed, she instructed Mo Xiaoling to refine her into a ghost at a special location.
• A-Zhuang drove Mo Xiaoling and Black Sis to the specified place, where Mo Xiaoling's sight returned and she saw a familiar scene of death.

A middle-aged man slaughtered the people of Sanghua Township by turning them into monsters with wooden stakes, then escaped with ghosts in his car. Mo Xiaoling recognized the place and panicked, while Black Sister calmly began teaching her how to refine ghosts.

• A middle-aged man used a wooden stake to transform a young robber and the villagers into violent monsters.
• The monsters killed the villagers and attacked the middle-aged man, who destroyed them by detonating the stakes in their chests.
• The middle-aged man called Black Sister to demand extra payment for killing the entire village, then drove away surrounded by ghosts.
• Mo Xiaoling came to her senses in Sanghua Township and urged A-Zhuang to flee after recognizing the people as ghosts.
• Black Sister began methodically teaching Mo Xiaoling how to refine ghosts as yin energy rose around them.

Xiao Ling survived Hei Jie’s ritual in Sanghua Township and watched Hei Jie devour the village ghosts, then returned with Hei Jie’s ghost and took over the Five-Colored Sect. As Brother Bao drove her away, he mentioned two people seeking answers, and Xiao Ling asked whether the fortune-teller had contacted him.

• Hei Jie cut Xiao Ling’s hand and made her recite an incantation while A-Zhuang protected them from the ghosts with real talismans.
• After Xiao Ling completed the incantation, the talisman barrier collapsed, and the ghosts killed A-Zhuang and attacked Hei Jie.
• Hei Jie’s ghost emerged and devoured the ghosts of Sanghua Township, while Xiao Ling endured the ritual’s side effects and used a ghost to absorb some of them.
• Hei Jie returned as more than one ghost, and Xiao Ling called for help before telling Brother Bao she was taking over the Five-Colored Sect.
• Brother Bao drove Xiao Ling away and asked about two people seeking answers and the loss of Sanghua Township; Xiao Ling asked whether the fortune-teller had contacted him.

Mo Xiaoling struggled to manage her blindness, Sister Black’s growing hunger for power, and her fading connection with Wan Jisheng. When she learned he was headed to the haunted Guangyuan Mountain resort, she rushed there to warn him, but arrived with his whereabouts unknown.

• Mo Xiaoling abandoned her plans to turn Liu Liangwang and Wu Qiren into ghosts after Liu Liangwang refused to meet and Sister Black suspected they had been warned.
• Mo Xiaoling took over Sister Black’s work and repeatedly avoided Wan Jisheng, while Sister Black grew more ghostlike and urged her to find ghosts.
• Wan Jisheng told Mo Xiaoling he was traveling to inspect a stalled resort project at Guangyuan Mountain, and she urgently warned him not to enter the mountains because a powerful ghost was there.
• When the call disconnected, Mo Xiaoling paid Brother Leopard to take her to Guangyuan Mountain and repeatedly tried to reach Wan Jisheng on the way.
• Near the mountain, Mo Xiaoling insisted Wan Jisheng must have gone into the mountains, but Brother Leopard went to ask at a hotel first.

Mo Xiaoling forced Leopard to drive her to Guangyuan Mountain while searching for Wan Jisheng, but the eerie presence there severed her link to Blackie and trapped her in darkness. She found Wan Jisheng in the darkness, yet his presence seemed ghostly, and she realized Blackie had become an evil ghost.

• Mo Xiaoling used Blackie to overpower Leopard and made him drive her toward Guangyuan Mountain to find Wan Jisheng.
• As they entered the mountain area, Blackie drifted away and the red thread connecting her to Mo Xiaoling snapped, leaving Mo Xiaoling weakened.
• A darkness swallowed Leopard, and Mo Xiaoling heard footsteps approach while an unseen presence watched her.
• Wan Jisheng appeared and told Mo Xiaoling he had been taken from the Guangyuan Hotel, but his ghostly presence made her unsure whether he was truly alive.
• Wan Jisheng called for Blackie, unaware that Mo Xiaoling had turned her into a ghost, and Mo Xiaoling panicked and urged him to flee.

Mo Xiaoling’s ability led her to kill Wan Jisheng while the mountain ghost confused reality with illusions. After discovering the true monster, she and the narrator were dragged underground, leaving Wan Jisheng’s fate unresolved.

• Mo Xiaoling witnessed a false scene in which Brother Bao took over Wan Jisheng’s body, then mistakenly activated her ability against Wan Jisheng.
• The narrator realized Mo Xiaoling had targeted the wrong person, but Wan Jisheng’s soul was expelled and vanished when the scene of death ended.
• Brother Bao drove past and repeatedly ran over Sister Hei, while Sister Hei’s words made Mo Xiaoling question what was real.
• Wan Jisheng’s body turned into a skeleton, and Mo Xiaoling’s soul drifted out of her body to reveal a huge monster formed from the mountain’s yin energy.
• The monster pinned Mo Xiaoling down, and the narrator confronted it before both were thrown deeper underground.

After waking from the dream, the narrator went to find Ye Qing and discovered that he had vanished. Touching something on the floor brought back a vision of the Mount Guangyuan ghost’s aftermath, leaving the narrator in severe pain and staring at the spot beneath his hand.

• The narrator woke after a night of darkness and realized that the Mount Guangyuan ghost had affected his soul and possibly stolen a moment of his time.
• He called Skinny, learned that the teams were setting up for the second round of voting, and left home to visit Ye Qing at Workers and Peasants Sixth Village.
• At Building Six, the narrator sensed that Ye Qing’s yin energy had weakened and searched the office, but found no sign of him.
• As he prepared to leave, the narrator stepped on something and felt a head beneath his hand.
• The narrator saw a vision in which the Mount Guangyuan monster collapsed, two streams of yin energy split apart, and a hazy figure passed Mo Xiaoling and Black Sister, causing them to disappear.
• The narrator returned to himself in intense pain and stared in shock at the spot beneath his palm.

Ye Qing took Mo Xiaoling’s ability after killing her, while the ghost from Guangyuan Mountain remained unresolved. The narrator helped with the residents’ vote, then told Wu Ling about the ghost and Ye Qing’s new ability.

• The narrator learned Ye Qing had killed Mo Xiaoling and taken her ability, and Ye Qing said the narrator would have to volunteer for him to take theirs.
• The narrator said they hoped Ye Qing’s plan succeeded even if people died, and Ye Qing called them an idiot before sending them out of the office.
• The narrator helped the retired property owners with the second round of voting and discussed the Guangyuan Mountain ghost with the others.
• The narrator called Wu Ling and described the dream, prompting her to analyze the ghost’s unusual ability to affect other abilities.
• The narrator told Wu Ling that Ye Qing had taken Mo Xiaoling’s ability, and Wu Ling inferred that it worked by transferring the side effects of supernatural death scenes to another person.